Chuck vs the Eagle Commander
by slalyew
Summary: What if Chuck had got the Intersect a couple of days late? Would anything have turned out differently? It all starts out very familiar, but a new video game - the Eagle Commander - is about to be released, and the Nerd Herders cause some chaos while trying to get their hands on a copy. New missions, familiar missions, old characters, new characters! Rated M for violence.
1. Introducing: The Terrible Troll

_**Author's Note:  
**Welcome! It's great to have you here! (Unless you work for NBC and were one of the people who decided to take Chuck off the air... you're not welcome.)_

_Below you'll find the first (short) chapter to my first (hopefully long) FanFic. It grew from two ideas: What if Chuck got the Intersect a day later? and What if Chuck hadn't stopped the first bomb? I realised these two ideas could be merged, and thus Chuck vs the Eagle Commander came into being!_  
_I'm planning to always have short chapters, because I'm quite a slow writer and I think it's better to get a small chapter often, rather than a big chapter barely ever. The first handful of chapters will follow the first episode, and after that... well, things will get a little bit different :)_

_BTW, I don't own Chuck, or even any Converse Chucks. All rights to their respective owners, please don't sue me, please don't kill me, please do talk to me if you want some ideas for a Chuck movie. This is just some pure fan fiction._

_Enjoy, review, and don't freak out!_

* * *

"Do we really have to have this conversation again?"

Ellie smiled. "We've rehearsed it enough."

"Fine, I'll... get over Jill tomorrow," replied Chuck as he stood up, leaving Ellie sitting by the fountain alone. She sighed, staring after her little brother. Sometimes he seems like he could be president, then other times it's like he thinks himself worthless. She crossed her left arm under her right before resting her chin on her free hand.

After a few moments, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"You alright, babe?" Devon, her boyfriend she'd met years ago when they were both in Medical School, took a seat and put a comforting arm around her. Ellie leaned onto his shoulder.

She gave a sad smile, even though she knew Devon couldn't see it. "When is he going to realise that he's worth something?"

* * *

Chuck pushed open the door of his room, looking forward to some classic digital escapism: _Gears of War_, maybe _Call of Duty_. As he stepped in, Morgan quickly straightened up from next to Chuck's computer with a guilty look hiding behind his beard.

"H-hey Chuck."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Whatcha doing there, buddy?"

"Here? Just... looking at your computer. It's nice. Fancy. Is it new or-"

"Morgan, two things. One, there's no way I'd leave the promo copy of _Eagle Commander_ in the disc drive. And two, the copy on my hard drive is protected behind the famous Bartowski firewall. You'll just have to wait until next week, like the rest of the gaming world."

Mock surprise covered his best friend's face, and Morgan's voice rose by an octave or two. "It was _you_ that Big Mike gave the promo copy to? I had no idea. And the suggestion that I'd be trying to steal it..." Morgan scoffed, "Frankly, that is offensive."

Chuck rolled his eyes and flopped onto his bed, face down. He heard Morgan power up the Xbox before sliding a chair into his preferred gaming position.

"Co-op?" Morgan waved the second controller in the air. "We've still got more Locust scum to destroy."

Although he'd been looking forward to carving up some digital flesh, Chuck didn't feel that he now had the energy. As soon as he'd hit his bed, the night's escapades seemed to fall on top of him. He grunted a negative into his pillow. After a few minutes of silence – punctuated with bursts of gunfire and screams of agony – Chuck flipped over, knowing that his mind wouldn't shut up until he talked about it.

"So Ellie had a chat with me..."

* * *

"Cheer up, Chuck. You can talk to some women, y'know. It's a start."

Chuck knew Morgan was trying to help, but he'd never really found his best friend's counseling to be all that effective. Actually, it was usually safest to ignore it. He rubbed his tired eyes to try bring the TV screen back into focus.

_Pling!_

Morgan glanced over at the computer. "Wow. Blast-from-the-past wow. Bryce remembered your birthday, dude."

"What?" mumbled Chuck as he turned towards his computer. Did Morgan just say _Bryce_?

"The guy who got you kicked out of school, the guy who stole your girl, remember that guy?"

Oh actually, I'd totally forgotten about the guy who ruined my life, he thought. That happens sometimes when you have an awesome life like mine.

"Yeah, Morgan. I think I remember Bryce."

"Alright well, what uh, what have we got here?" Morgan stumbled over his words as he abandoned the digital world for the real. Discarding his controller, Morgan hurriedly stood up and peered over Chuck's shoulder as the latter took a seat at the computer desk. Attached to the email was a single file: _Stanford_, with the weird _.zrk_ file extension. Chuck double-clicked on it.

The words _'The terrible troll raises his sword'_ appeared on top of a black screen.

"What is it?" Morgan sounded confused.

"Zork," replied Chuck, as memories came crawling back to him. "Remember Zork, the old text-based video game? Well Bryce and I programmed our own version of it back at Stanford using a TRS-80."

"Wow, you guys were really cool." Morgan's voice implied that they were anything but, though Chuck didn't seem to hear.

"Yeah... If I could only remember what was in my hero's satchel." At this, Morgan swung his head round to look at his friend. "The weapons that I would use to kill the terrible troll," Chuck replied to his wordless look.

"Ri-ight. Y'know what, you're still really cool."

"And you're going home."

"Is it that time?"

"It's that time."

One of the good things about Morgan, Chuck thought, is that he'll leave when asked.

"I've still, uh, got to save the world," replied Morgan, finger pointing towards the Xbox as his eyes darted down to Chuck's hard drive. OK, maybe he doesn't know how to take a hint.

Chuck peered at Morgan's sweaty face. "You all right, buddy?"

Morgan gave a nervous laugh. "Great, just great... I wa- Aahh! Look over there!" He pointed towards the open window in the corner of Chuck's room, which Morgan usually preferred to use as a door. Chuck raised an eyebrow, not even bothering to turn around. Morgan returned his look with a weak smile. "Worth a shot?"

Chuck opened his mouth to reply when Morgan suddenly bent down and snatched something which had been hidden around the back of the computer. A cord was left dangling from the USB plug. The Zork game closed and a small bubble popped up on screen: 'This disk was not ejected properly.'

As Chuck glanced at the screen, Morgan took off towards the door.

"See you tomorrow, Chuck!"

"Morgan!" cried Chuck, "Big Mike will kill me! _Don't_ play that game!"

"No promises!" Morgan's voice faded into the distance as the front door slammed shut. Chuck sighed and ran his hands over his face. Well, he thought, I'd better find out what damage has been done.

It only took a few minutes to uncover a nifty little program which had avoided most of Chuck's security by creating a clone of his entire hard drive, rather than trying to open individual files or locations. He had to admit that he was impressed. And so, obviously, Morgan hadn't been working alone. Chuck would have to have some strong words to Jeff and Lester tomorrow about privacy and stealing.

Chuck toyed with the idea of opening Bryce's email again and playing through some Zork, for old time's sake; he was even pretty sure of what had been in his satchel. But his eyes were drooping and the alarm was set to go off in less than 5 hours. It'll still be there tomorrow night, he thought to himself as he switched off the light.


	2. Introducing: Vicki Vale

**A/N:** _Welcome back! I know it's only been a few days since I posted the first chapter, but I want to get a handful out of the next couple of weeks because I'll be away for most of January and thus unable to post/write :( BTW a huge thanks to everyone who has read, followed, favourited, or reviewed the first chapter! It gives me warm fuzzies to know that people actually enjoy reading what I've written._

_In case you're wondering (I know you are!), I don't own the TV show Chuck or anything to do with it, other than the seasons on DVD. I'm just writing this as some fan-based desperation for more Chuck goodness._

_Read on, faithful Fan Fiction fan!_

* * *

"Stop the presses! Who is that?"

Chuck, on hold with Buy More Corporate, ignored his bearded friend as he tried to sort the last few Nerd Herd files from last week while balancing the phone between his ear and shoulder.

"Vicki Vale..."

Morgan's reverential whisper breaks through Chuck's concentration and he's forced to give in to the brilliant _Batman_ movie/_Batdance_ reference.

"Vicki Vale, V-V-Vicki Vale, vickety-vickety, Vicki Va-"

Mid-chant, Chuck glanced up from his file to catch a sudden glimpse of an ethereal face haloed with buoyant blonde hair, a slight curve forming at the corner of her mouth. His eyes flicked back to the file.

Wait, what?

In one smooth movement, Chuck managed to drop the file, let the phone clatter to the desk, lift his head and place his arms on his hips. _Yeah, real smooth_, he thought to himself.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," she said with a smirk.

You could walk into a funeral and you wouldn't be interrupting, Chuck wanted to say – though possibly in a less creepy way. Instead, all that came out was, "No, not at all. Uh, that was... it's from Batman."

"Because that makes it better."

"Ha ha..." OK, point. Now I just need to say something intelligent and witty before Morgan ca-

"Hi, hey, I'm Morgan. This is Chuck."

"Wow, I didn't think people still named their kids 'Chuck', or 'Morgan' for that matter." She gave that smirk again, and Chuck's heart skipped a beat before his brain kicked into gear.

"My parents were sadists, and carnival freaks found him in a dumpster." Sadly, only first gear.

"But they raised me as one of their own, so..." Morgan trailed off. Before an awkward silence could build, Chuck realised he should probably do his job.

"How can I help you...?"

"Sarah," she offered.

"-Sarah."

"I'm here about this." She placed her phone on the desk between

"Oh yeah, the Inteli-cell, absolutely." Chuck almost wanted to sigh with relief – here was something that he felt comfortable with. "This model has a little screw that pops loose right in the back here, just go ahead and give it a couple of quick turns... and good as new! No problem." He flashed a smile at Sarah.

"Wow. You geeks are good."

Chuck and Morgan exchanged a pained look before turning back to Sarah, their sentences tumbling over each other.

"Nerds. I would say nerds is probably more-"

"I mean, it's no big deal, but-"

"Y'know, '_Nerd Herd_'-"

* * *

"Why wouldn't you call this girl?"

Chuck and Morgan were walking past the fountain outside the flat Chuck shared with his sister. After a long day at work Chuck was looking forward to blobbing, which was made easier by the fact that both Ellie and Awesome were on double-shift and so wouldn't be home to complain about his _Firefly_ marathon.

"Oh, I don't know, did you see her?" Chuck thought back to the image his mind had retained: an angel, or a valkyrie, or something as equally awesome and unattainable.

"Yes! Oh man, yes. Which is why I repeat the question: Why wouldn't you call this girl?"

"Because I live on planet Earth, Morgan." A thought then occurred to Chuck. "Why are you following me home?"

"Oh, come... hey, we're buddies! We're going to go do friend things and..." Morgan paused, then hurriedly blurted: "I need to use your computer because mine's started acting up on me." The innocent look on Morgan's face was far too, well, _innocent_ for Chuck's liking.

"Heh, heh. You tried to crack my firewall, didn't you?"

"Charles, you would accuse your best friend? Yes, yes I did."

"I told you, I've got a computer-killer of a virus built in there."

Morgan gave a 'what can you do' shrug then stepped back so Chuck could unlock the door. As he pushed it open, Morgan started again on an earlier rant about why his beard was necessary – _and_ awesome. Chuck flicked the light on and froze. Morgan stopped mid-word. Standing in the middle of his lounge, computer in hand, was a figure dressed entirely in black, face-mask and all.

For a heartbeat that seemed to stretch on, neither party moved.

"Please," begged Chuck, "not the computer."

* * *

"Please describe the intruder to me, sir." The cop flipped open his notebook and took a seat opposite Chuck and Morgan. His partner was currently taking photographs of the destroyed computer.

"Uh, he was wearing all black-"

"Like a _ninja_!"

"-and had some vicious fighting skills-"

"Oh, you should have seen it, man, it was like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norr-"

"Morgan!"

Morgan stopped mid-sentence, turning to Chuck with a sheepish look and raising his hands in mock surrender. Chuck gave the officer an apologetic smile before continuing his description.

A few minutes later and the officers were out the door, both of them offering comforting words like "If the assailant returns..." or "If you think that you're being watched...". Chuck breathed a sigh of relief as they left and leant his head against the closed door. Rather than being worried or anxious, he was actually just tired. He had definitely not got enough sleep last night after the party, and on top of that he'd just worked an 8-hour shift. A burglar – who destroyed his computer, no less! - was not what he'd been hoping for. Chuck lifted his head from the door and turned around to find Morgan gazing down at the destroyed computer, sandwich in hand and a morose expression as he chewed. "Do you think we can save it?"

"I've gotta try. It doesn't look good though." Suddenly the reality of what was lying on the floor hit Chuck. "I have no computer... I don't have a computer! Wh... what'll I do? Morgan? I..."

Morgan stepped in front of Chuck's glazed eyes. "Buddy! Chuck!" He began to click his fingers in Chuck's face. "Snap out of it, man! Do _not_ freak out on me. We'll take your computer..." Morgan glanced down again. "… the remains of your computer into the Buy More tomorrow, it'll all be totally sorted."

Chuck remained in his comatose state. Morgan grimaced, not looking forward to what he knew he'd have to do. He raised his hand and shut his eyes before swinging his open palm towards Chuck's face.

_Slap!_

* * *

**A/N: **_You may have noticed that there's not much description of Sarah. I assumed that Chuck wouldn't have really remembered many details - he's more sort of dumbstruck.  
__So what'd ya think? Let me know in a review! And another chapter will be up in a few days time :) God bless!_


	3. Introducing: The Intersect

_**A/N: **Merry Christmas everyone! Here's an early gift for you all: the third chapter :) As you can probably guess from the title, it introduces a key part of the story. And funnily enough, Chuck is owned by NBC - not me.  
_

_Enjoy - and review!_

* * *

"Bartowski!" Big Mike's angry baritone echoed through the Buy More.

Chuck winced. This wasn't going to be good. He spun around to look towards his boss, who was standing in the door – OK, filling the door – of his office.

"Get over here!"

"On my way, Big Mike." He turned back with a forced smile to the customer complaining about bad reception on his new phone. "Please excuse me, sir. If you could direct your queries to Lester here," - he gestured towards the shifty-looking Nerd Herder currently playing Tetris on his phone - "then he will be more than happy to help you."

"Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, see that's where you're wrong." Lester spun round to face his quasi-boss. "I won't be happy to. In fact, there is nothing that- hey!" His voice rose an octave or two as Chuck turned and moved towards Big Mike. "Don't walk away when I'm talking to you! I have rights you know!"

Chuck rolled his eyes as Lester's voice faded behind him.

"What d'you need, Big Mike?"

Mike, the manager of store, had been dubbed 'Big Mike' for as long as Chuck could remember; Big Mike had even embraced this name, having it engraved onto the name plate on his desk. Sadly, this good nature hadn't extended to things like smiling or treating employees graciously.

"The rest of your Nerd Herd freaks have spent all yesterday on some tech issue out back. Get out there and fix it for them. They ain't being paid to get it wrong!"

As Chuck trudged over to the door labelled 'Staff Only', he wondered what issue they were working on – he'd literally just looked over all the current jobs the Nerd Herd had. He stepped into the work area out back. There was a large storage cage in against one wall, inventively dubbed 'The Cage'. Inside the cage, all the boxes were stacked precariously high, leaving space for three of Chuck's co-workers to crowd around a desk, backs to the door. It looked like Anna and Jeff – two Nerd Herders wearing their trademark white shirts – were working on a computer, with Morgan standing above them as a bearded overlord in Buy More-green. He was muttering under his breath as they worked. "No, no, what if we tried... Ah, damn you and your mad skills, Chuck Bartowski!"

"It's no use, Morgan," complained Anna as she pushed her chair back and started to stand up. "I give up."

"If Anna's done, I'm done," agreed Jeff.

Morgan's voice took on a pleading note. "No, guys, come on, we can do this! Anna, don't leave... Jeff! Jeff, don't you want that case of beer? Just try a little bit more-"

Jeff shook his head as he started to follow Anna out of the cage. "I've learnt to never keep going after the woman's done." Anna spun around to stare him down, her frighteningly short skirt spinning with her. "I _told_ you, stop speaking like that!" She made a disgusted noise in her throat as she stormed out of the cage, barely glancing at Chuck as she flung open the door to the shop floor.

Seemingly unfazed by Anna's fury, Jeff stumbled after her. He paused when he saw Chuck standing there with an unimpressed look on his face. "I knew Lester couldn't stop you finding us," Jeff whispered, "Nothing can stop you." He then continued on his merry way. After suppressing a shudder Chuck looked back towards the cage where Morgan now stood, appropriately bashful-looking. Chuck cocked at an eyebrow at him.

"Dude, before you say anything, I just need you to know that this _entire_ thing was Lester's idea. He's like Hans Gruber... except Indian. Plus his voice is nowhere near as seductive as Alan Rickman's. You know what, he's actually nothing like Hans-"

"Hand over the hard drive, Morgan." Chuck extended his hand, interrupting his best friend's panicked rant.

"Uh... well that's the thing," he began, "I would absolutely love to 'hand over the hard drive', but... we sort of installed a clone of your entire hard drive onto this computer so that it would be easier to crack into your copy of Eagle Commander." This last sentence came out in a rush, finishing with a squeak as Morgan went into '_The Morgan_', protecting his important parts from any ensuing violence.

After a few moments of nothing happening, Morgan peeked between his fingers and was shocked to a smile growing on Chuck's face.

"You OK there, bro?"

The smile burst into a full-blown grin.

"Don't you get it?" Chuck grabbed Morgan by the shoulders. "My computer... It's alive!" Chuck was ecstatic. He'd forgotten all about the copy of his hard drive that Morgan had made – understandable after being assaulted by a ninja.

"Heh. So does that make me, like, your Gollum?" At this, Chuck shot him a queried look. Morgan continued. "Y'know, your computer is like the Ring; I stole it, but my betrayal saves the world! You should thank me, really."

Chuck smiled and dropped his hands from Morgan's shoulders. "I'm not quite sure this is on the same scale, but I think I see what you're getting at. Gollum died in the end, didn't he?"

"What, uh, Gollum did what? I... What's that, sir?" Morgan looked over Chuck's shoulder towards the shop. "Xerox machines? Yea, I'm on it." Morgan darted out of the cage and through the door to the shop.

Chuck just shook his head in disbelief as his friend exited, making his curls bounce. Though he was glad that all of his latest files and software were no longer lost (Chuck only backed-up his computer every month or two), he was also annoyed at the lack of propriety from his fellow Herders. Did they really think that he wouldn't discover them doing this? Or that they'd even be able to get through his protection? Suddenly he was curious – just how far through had they got? He knew he hadn't really kept the protection up-to-date since his days as The Piranha, but he was confident that it was still beyond anything that Jeff or Anna could work through.

Sitting down at the computer, Chuck cracked his fingers and gave his neck a small stretch. He flicked though files and keystroke logs. Less than a minute later, he sat back with a contented smile. _Not even close. The Bartowski Special strikes again!_ He felt an inordinate desire to pull off a few 'firing-gun' motions with his hands. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he was overdue for a break – surely a little browse through his computer couldn't hurt? Chuck knew that it would be a day or two before he could organise buying another computer to put all his data back onto anyway.

From habit, Chuck first went to his email. Since he hadn't checked his email for a couple of days, there was a growing collection. He deleted most of them as spam ('Mr Lichtenstein has left you his inheritance!', 'Africa-honey Viagra that YOU NEED!'), replied to a few messages from his Xbox Live mates, and suddenly found himself staring at Bryce Larkin's name. Chuck hovered the mouse over the email as emotions swirled. Eventually deciding that this email could be an olive branch extended by Bryce (and also just really keen to play some Zork) Chuck double-clicked the small attachment icon.

_The terrible troll raises his sword._

Chuck gave a little half-grin. It was just like Bryce to start the game at this exact point. When they'd coded their own version of Zork back at Stanford, they'd decided to take a few liberties. Their first one – and the one which had caused great debate between them – was changing the weapon needed to kill the troll. The original game required the sword, but Bryce had insisted that it would be fun to flip this on its head and make the 'nasty knife' the weapon needed. In hindsight, it _had_ been fun watching their friends die as they tried in vain to use their sword.

Chuck typed: _Attack troll with nasty knife_. The screen went black for moment, before random images started to flash across the screen. _Crap, don't tell me this is a virus_, thought Chuck. _Just my luck to have my backup destr- _Suddenly, a switch seemed to flip in his head and everything went... not blank, but busy. It was like there suddenly wasn't enough processing power in his brain to run any other programs; all Chuck could do was stare at the screen as image after image sped across it confusingly.

After an indeterminate amount of time – every second felt as long as a life-age of the earth – his mind clicked back on and he realised that the images had stopped.

Chuck fell backwards as everything went black.

* * *

_**A/N:** Dun dun duuuunnn! What will happen next? Here's a clue: it has nothing to do with sharks. Or tornadoes. So, no Sharknado-Chuck crossover (sorry). I probably won't get the next chapter up until after Christmas, but to motivate me to write more quickly you could... review! Or follow! Or heck, favourite this story if you love it that much._

_I hope you all have a blessed and joyous Christmas!_


	4. Introducing: The Headache

**_A/N:_**_ First of all: Sorry. It's been four whole weeks since I updated. That's very cruel of me, especially after I said I'd update often. Turns out that I'm even lazier than I thought! I have lots of excuses, but you don't want me to waste time with those.  
This is still a bit of a short chapter - more just to hold you over until I can get more done. To be honest, I'm just procrastinating having to write Sarah again... she's become such a figure in the mind of most Chuck fans that it's difficult to work out how to do her. But don't worry - I'll have another chapter out soon, I promise! For the moment, just enjoy this and let me know what you think._

_And Chuck's not mine. I wish it/he was. But sadly, no. Some guy with the initials NBC owns him I think..._

* * *

"Chuck?"

A warped voice broke into Chuck's blackout. Was someone saying his name? What was wrong with their voice?

"Chuck!"

OK, someone was definitely saying his name. Now he just needed to remember how to open his eyelids...

"Dude! You- are you OK?"

There was definitely a bit of panic in the voice. _OK, eyelids, open sesame!_ A furry, green figure swam into view. "Morgan?" Chuck's tongue felt gooey, making it hard to form words.

"Yea, man, yea it's me!" Morgan stretched out a hand and pulled Chuck up off his back. "What happened?"

Chuck, now sitting on the cold concrete floor, groaned as his head jumped on a merry-go-round. "I was going to ask you the same question..." His eyes were caught by the computer behind Morgan, now showing nothing more ominous than a simple black screen. What the hell had just happened?

"You OK?" Morgan, for all his devotion, didn't actually sound that worried. "I sent Jeff back here to see if you were still angr- uh, working on your computer, and he said you were dead."

"Not dead, just... lying on the floor."

Morgan nodded his head knowingly before stretching out his hand again to help Chuck stand up.

"How long was I out for?" Chuck asked as he stumbled to his feet, his head throbbing angrily.

"That I can't tell you. I left you here... uh, maybe three, four hours ago? But as to whe-"

"Four HOURS?! And you didn't come looking for me before now? I could have been dead!"

"Uh OK, first, you're not dead, so I'm all clear on that count. And secondly, you had threatened to kill me, which is a totally justifiable excuse for avoiding someone."

Chuck opened his mouth to reply that they both knew the death threat had been hollow, but thought better of it. Instead, he sat down again in front of the computer that had his cloned hard drive and clicked the 'On' button - weirdly, it had switched itself off. "Has anyone noticed that I uh, haven't really been working for the last few hours?"

Morgan just laughed and shook his head. Chuck smiled as well - stupid question, really. The other Nerd Herders skipped hours of work every day, Big Mike usually only noticed things concerning fishing or danishes - who else was there?

Smiling, Chuck turned back to the computer, expecting to be welcomed by a bright desktop. His stomach dropped when he saw a blank screen. Not even any lights flashing. He glanced under the desk and around the back of the computer. Everything was plugged in, switches on - so why wasn't anything working? Did it have anything to do with that weird virus that had kicked in during Zork? As Chuck began to frantically click the power button, he could hear Morgan breathing loudly behind him. _Wait a minute..._ He turned around to face Morgan.

"Ah ha. Ha ha hah. Oh, you nearly had me – you coded in some virus to freak me out and make me think my computer was dead, right? That's..." Chuck considered for a moment, "OK, it's sorta cruel, yes, but I can see the funny side."

Morgan stared back at Chuck blankly.

"You're good, but I can..." – Chuck tapped Morgan on the chest – "...I can always tell when you're lying. Please tell me that you're lying. Joking. Turned evil and not giving up on a cruel joke!" Desperation and a touch of panic crept into Chuck's voice.

_This can't be happening!_ he thought. _Not only have I lost computer again but Bryce-freaking-Larkin sent me a virus that destroyed it?!_

Morgan just shook his head, mystified. "I'm sorry, buddy, but I have absolutely no idea what you are on about." He peered at Chuck. "You... Did you hit your head when you went down? We could go and see Ellie if you think it's necessary. I think it's necessary. You know what, I'm just going to start calling her no-"

Chuck's head flicked up. _Ellie in doctor-sister mode, with Bryce Larkin thrown in? No way_.  
"No! No, I'm fine. I'm just... so sad that my computer's dead again. It brought back all the memories of the ninja attack. I'm fine, Morgan, really."

Morgan peered closely at Chuck and nodded, obviously seeing something in his eyes that he approved of. "Sweet. Well, since we're all good again and you're computer's dead again – sorry about that – could I hit you up for some dimes for lunch? Lester told me about this awesome new sandwich joint that's opened up nearby and..."

Chuck let Morgan's voice fade into the background as they walked towards the shop floor. His head was still thudding painfully, but at least it meant that he could push all his worries and questions about Bryce – _what the hell, Bryce? Send me a virus that totally fries my computer, after years of –_ no, no, pushing all those thoughts behind the pain. Focus on the pain, Chuck. Focus on the-

"Finally decided to do some work have you, Charles?" The voice of Harry Tang broke through the comfortable white noise Morgan was making. Chuck, having just walked through the door connecting the storeroom to the shop floor, froze and suppressed a few choice curse words. He spoke through gritted teeth. "So sorry, _Harold_. I wasn't feeling great."

Harry was standing in front of Chuck, arms folded, blocking his path. Neither of them said anything; they just faced each other like two fighters before a bout, sizing their opponent up. After a few silent moments, Harry's eye began to twitch. Chuck's lip curled up, claiming the victory. He made a move to walk around Harry, until Tang's arm suddenly shot out and blocked his path once again. Looking up at Chuck (which gave Chuck another quiet victory), he said, "Well I'm sure you know the Buy More policy: any time spent sick during the working day, wherein the employee takes time off of work but not the entire day, is counted as break time. So I'm sure you'll be more than happy to man..." Harry eyed Chuck up disapprovingly, "...well, _staff_ the Nerd Herd desk while your co-workers enjoy their lunch break."

"Thanks for reminding me, Harry. I'd love to man the desk." Chuck replied with a thin smile and sarcastic voice. Harry Tang just finished with an evil look before stalking off. As he left, Morgan slipped out from behind Chuck – he'd somehow managed to hide behind him for the entire conversation. Morgan gave a shiver as he glared at Tang's retreating back. "_Man_, that guy makes me want to break my no-nunchucks-at-work rule."

"If I remember correctly, that's actually the government's rule – usually called a law. But I second that sentiment."

* * *

**_A/N_****_: _**_Thoughts? I like writing Morgan. He gives opportunities for all the things I want to say in real life, but know I shouldn't! So, as always, please review and let me know what you think. And I actually love getting details in reviews (though the ones which say 'I love it etc' give me mad feels), so please let me know what specific things you like or don't like, what I could improve, how realistic my characters feel.  
And in the next chapter: Sarah Walker._


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